Thinking about 'Wisdom from the Wastelands' and Other Sundry Ideas

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving folks! I know that my American readers don’t celebrate for some time, but this is the reason why my latest blog is being posted a day late instead of on Sunday as it typically is.

Coming close to the one year anniversary since I started posting on a weekly basis. Even though I touched on this last week, it still blows my mind that I have been able to keep it going as long as I have.

But unlike my fellow authors who come up with specific topics to touch upon, my blog is more of just a literal diary of what I have been working on and the occasional rant, as well as review and opinion.

I haven’t had any feedback on what people think of this, but I know that there are those who read my blog each week, so I thank you for that.

Maybe in the future I will start to change my format a little, but until I can figure out something I really want to start writing about, it’ll stay like this for the time being.

This week saw the latest in Derek Holland’s series of Unique Superscience Artifacts volume III released for Wisdom from the Wastelands.  It’s pretty ironic that he’s writing this particular series since the vast majority of the work he’s done for the series has been biology based. I like it!

It’s almost as if he and I are switching roles… he’s doing tech based issues at the moment, and I’ve got five issues coming out that are based on harvesting the biological goodness from the core mutants in the game.

He’s got some totally whacked ideas with the superscience issues, and they’re a lot of fun, so of course I am going to push all my readers to pick up the issues and give them a read. He’s got at least one if not two more to come as well.

Speaking of WftW, I finally got around to updating the Wisdom from the Wastelands index here on the site. It has been updated to include the last four issues that have been published. Sorry for the delay folks!

I have also been amiss when it comes to producing bonus material for my last several issues. It’s not that I have been lazy, quite the contrary… I have been having trouble coming up with material for several of the issues!

Well that and going through some significant life events over the past few months did not help either for that matter. But those who read my blog every week will know what I’m talking about.

The biggest stumbling block when it comes to bonus material are my two Radiation issues. For issue 38: Radiation poisoning I am not sure what to write up! I covered pretty much all the horrific effects that radiation has on a body and converted it to rules to use in Mutant Future. I guess the only thing I could do is maybe come up with some drugs or devices that could help alleviate some of the symptoms?  Stuff that I haven’t already covered in my various other issues.

Then there is issue 41: Alternate forms of Radiation. This particular issue I had to cut at least one type of radiation due to the size of the issue, so I could post what ended up on the cutting room floor.  

Come to think of it, I have not posted any bonus content from as far back as issue 35: Terror Weapons. It is high time that I gather my thoughts and come up with some nasty bonus material for all these issues and make my readers and followers of this series of game supplements happy.

I might even start working on that bonus material after I have finished with this week’s blog.

And there is another issue that I am thinking of working on, but I’m not sure how to start, or where to begin. Various types of currency in the game. Gamma World had Domars, Twilight 2000 used gold and trade goods, Mutant Future uses gold, silver and copper.

I really think that the game deserves an issue that is devoted to different types of currency and even an expanded treasure table.

Something to possibly look forward to in the near future, if I can wrap my head around it and come up with a something worthwhile!

I would also very much like to take all the bonus material that I have written and get Greg to edit it for me and have Mike Varhola publish it as a free download. This would not be a difficult task to work on; it would just take some time to get the editing complete. I really need to jog both Mike’s and Greg’s memory on this and see if we can get the ball rolling or not.

Finally I got around to posting weapon conversions once again. I’m feeling a little lazy at the moment and I haven’t written any new mutant conversions, and it could be a little while before I get back to that, but at least for the time being I will continue with the weapons from the Crysis series of games. Don’t fret; I will get back to converting monsters in the near future.

Believe it or not, I just sort of ran out of creatures to convert. I know I still have tons of source material like Spider-Man and Doctor Who, but I want a little more variety than that.

I have been toying with doing an index for the monsters that I have converted and posting it to the site, but such a task is daunting to say the very least. I have upwards of 200 conversions on the site and to link them all in a single index would take a couple of days work.

Despite this, I am still considering it.

I know that I have at least one reader from Calgary, so I am going to post about Screamfest. My son used to go every year and I was able to make it back in 2011, but I haven’t had a chance to do so yet.

It’s a fun time with haunted houses and various other attractions, and celebrates all things Halloween.

I still have a couple of chances to go see it this year and it all comes down to if my son wants to go, of if I can get my best bud Jamal to go with me.

Oh that’s right! How could I possibly forget? Season 5 of the Walking Dead premiered last night. I’m going to make the assumption that at least a few of you managed to catch it. Because I don’t have cable or satellite, I didn’t. I have to wait.

I guess they’re into the whole massive story arch that deals with Negan from the comics. I wonder just how much it will deviate from the comics?  I just hope that it deviates far enough that they don’t kill Glenn like they did in the comics. That was one of the most brutal and heart-rending deaths in the whole series.

Last week I mentioned that I was still plugging away at my short stories. ‘Traders’ is nearly 12,000 words long and I’m not done yet. I think it could turn out to be one of the longer stories in the series. I hope to finally get it finished this week and then I will start on the last of the shorts, ‘Meeting’.

And I have been asked when these various stories are going to be available for reading. Once ‘Sword of Kos: Dark Inheritance’ is published then I will be getting them posted. Not until then however, since all these stories take place after the events in that novel.

One last thing before I close off this week’s edition. Isn’t it ironic how when you listen to a song on a TV show or a movie, whenever you hear that particular song in the future, it always brings back the memories of that particular show or movie?

For me, whenever I hear ‘Wayward Son’ my mind always flashes to Sam and Dean from Supernatural. And of course with Guardians of the Galaxy there are about four different songs that when I hear them played I think back to that awesome movie! Particularly ‘Hooked on a Feeling’.

Hey, did you know that Marvel / Disney has an animated Guardians of the Galaxy series in the works? If not, you do now!

And that is about it for me. I hope that you have a great week and that everything goes your way.

Until next week, peace!

PS, if you were wondering why I used this particular image for my blog, it made me laugh. And it reminds me of all the various political based posts that I see day in and day out on my news feed on Facebook.